May 25, Sunday: Began again this morning with two hours of separate exercises for men and women. The guys got “Rock and Roll” by Led Zeppelin to pump us up at the start and they got some Joni Mitchell (which I heard later as it wafted through the wall separating our groups). After having us jump and run in place and doing some yoga poses, Deida’s two assistants K-Don and Eli took any questions the men might have. There was a moment of tension as the question period went long and one guy spoke up with, “You know, you’ve been saying we were going to wrap this up ‘in a couple of minutes’ a few times and now I don’t believe anything you say.” This got us back to doing exercises. I believe I’m not at liberty to go into too much detail as to what these were, but let’s just say it had to do with eye contact and locating energy in a partner, and made me extremely uncomfortable. Which I suppose was the point.

My friend the sex educator, whom you may recall from previous blog entries, also came for the weekend, to work in a volunteer capacity. She was allowed to take part, however, and so I found out from her that the women’s exercices were much more physically strenuous and endurance testing. That explains the Joni Mitchell.

During the lunch break, I chatted with one of the women I’d done an exercise with the afternoon before. Talking to a stranger with whom I’d shared a pretty intimate moment–she repeating “I’d follow you anywhere,” me saying “You’re beautiful”, in close proximity–was, well, weird. So we talked about our cats.

Back in the conference room after lunch, we were treated to the man himself, David Deida, taking some questions from the audience/participants. Once again the session was hijacked by couples wanting Deida to solve their problems while we singles twiddled our thumbs. It didn’t help thinking back to something Eli, one of the assistants, had said during the men’s Q-and-A that morning, about listening even when the question didn’t seem pertinent because you never know when you’re going to hear some gem of wisdom.

My energy was serious flagging by the mid-afternoon break, but when we returned to the conference room things got interesting again. We were separated into two separate groups, men in the chairs on the right, women on the left. Deida asked for volunteers from the audience to help demonstate what men find attractive in women. Suddenly there was a rush towards the stage, so much so that a few of the women wouldn’t fit. One even fell off. We spent the next couple of hours, men and women, with Deida as monitor, zeroing in on what it is men look for when it comes to women we’d like to have sex with for one night and those we would like to find enlightenment with for 20 years on a desert island. Two came in with an almost equal number of votes in the first and three for the second. One woman was even selected for both.

The sex educator was shattered when told of what she’d missed. Sick with a cold, she’d decided to sit this session out, not knowing what we’d be doing, and was sorely pissed when she found out. I told her I could easily imagine her making a beeline for the stage and getting in on the competition, and I figured she would easily have won one of the “competitions”, for lack of a better term. Although she was disappointed when I told her which I thought she would have taken. “I already know I’m [expletive deleted],” she pouted. “Three guys came up to me after and asked why I wasn’t up there!” She added, “I want to win the enlightenment one, 20 years on a desert island! Why can’t I win that one?”